


Fire in the Fist

by PipersLostChild



Series: Forget the Bull in the China Shop (There’s a China Doll in the Bullpen) [1]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, And it’s a lot happier than the show., Don’t worry, F/F, Fem!Danny, Fem!Steve, Genderbending, If you only read the parts after basic is done., Sort Of, its a character study folks, there will be more later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 17:38:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15645672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PipersLostChild/pseuds/PipersLostChild
Summary: Steve McGarret was born a Girl. Somehow that manages to simultaneously change everything and yet nothing at all.“Stephanie was one of two girls in the SEALS training program, the second was kicked out after two weeks, and then she was alone with a group of thirty guys. But she couldn’t fail, couldn’t stop, had to prove that she could do it, that she was good enough to be a female SEAL (and didn’t that hurt, the realization that she would never be more than good enough, couldn’t,  would never be anything better that that to anyone).”





	Fire in the Fist

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this before I finished watching season one, and had this idea running around my head and had to write it down. I hope you guys like it.  
> Oh and Btdubbs  
> I DO NOT, AND NEVER WILL OWN HAWAII 5-0, OR ANYTHING RECOGNIZABLE!  
> Okay now that that is out of the way, enjoy the story.

Stephanie McGarret was the first born child of a cop, who was the son of a naval officer who went down with the Arizona. Her father expected a boy. She was raised the same way he would’ve raised a boy, but with a mother nagging at her to be more girlish. She was very rarely home, often out surfing once she learned how. When Mary was old enough to come with her, she brought her with. Mary learned from the same man who taught her, which may have caused some resentment, until she realized that there was no one else Steph trusted to teach her. At the age of fifteen, when she answered the doorbell to a cop with a look on her face that told the whole story before she even said the words that bring the nightmare to life. Her father wasn’t home (he never was). Two weeks after the death of her mother she and Mary went to the funeral expecting to head back home after. But neither saw home again for another seventeen years. Mary went to the Aunt Debbie’s, but Steph, Steph went in a completely different direction, to an uncle she had never met before, or heard of until five minutes before her flight boarded, and only saw on the weekends due to a job she knew nothing about. (In another life where she was a he, it was easier. He was a Football captain, and knew how to play well. Here it was rough. She didn’t know how to do any of the girly things, spoke with a strange accent, and didn’t know how to connect with anyone outside of surfing, having never needed to back home and that _hurt hurt hurt_ so badly she sometimes wanted to cry. But she couldn’t, she just needed to wait until she was eighteen, than she could get out of here.) Life went on and when she turned eighteen she joined the navy, and somehow she got into the SEALS, and basic for that was hell.  
Stephanie was one of two girls in the SEALS training program, the second was kicked out after two weeks, and then she was alone with a group of thirty guys. But she couldn’t fail, couldn’t stop, had to prove that she could do it, that she was good enough to be a female SEAL (and didn’t that hurt, the realization that she would never be more than good enough, couldn’t, would never be anything better that that to anyone). And God was she lonely. She had no one, nothing left to go back to, she cut all ties to get in. She hadn’t talked to her father since before the plane ride to the mainland. Mary hadn’t answered her calls when she tried to tell her that Stephanie had enlisted, or even that she graduated, so it had been four months since she had talked to what was left of her family, and one month into basic training (and god it hurt that the one person she was closest to before… before, wouldn’t return, or even answer her calls). She was alone in this, and it hurt. It hurt so bad and she wanted to quit, give up, go home, but home was gone and she had nothing left to lose but her life, and there were those around her who had whole families to morn their loss. So she pushed and she kept going, and never stopped pushing forward. She had nothing to turn around for. She pushed harder than everyone else, gave every training session all she had, pushed herself to the breaking point and beyond, and now she no longer had the energy to silently cry herself to sleep at night, in an empty bunk room. Then two days before the beginning of Hell Week one of the mess officers took her aside and told her that if she sucked him off he would be able to make it easier, and she was so so tempted, but she said no, walked away from the offer, and Hell Week was so much worse than it was in a universe where being a man gave her immunity that she didn’t get here, because of something she couldn’t control. She got over a thousand less calories per day than what she needed, her boots were filled with rocks that she had to run 200 miles on, her feet bleeding. Her clothes were filled with itching powder, her pack was improperly packed at night when she was asleep, her tent was knifed to the point it was unusable. Her water bottle was filled with glue and plastic, making it impossible to use. But she learned, she kept going. She kept pushing herself. She cleaned out her shoes of the rocks, and never took them off that entire week. She washed out her clothes in a stream, and slept with them on, cleaning them herself everyday. She stole a water bottle from somewhere, and filled it herself. After the incident with her pack she slept curled around it, always sleeping with one eye open. Four days in, with another three days to go the officer came back and asked if she changed her mind. She looked him in the eyes and said no, definitive and clear, and apparently the fire in her eyes scared him, because he walked away first, clearly fleeing, and the rest of the week was a hell of a lot easier. She collapsed into her bunk at the end of the week, still fully dressed, not trusting of the peace, and slept for 72 hours straight (the officer was found out and put into a court Marshall. He was dishonorably discharged, never again to work a steady job. She looked him up later and found out that he had raped four other women, and worked as a fry cook, living with his parents for the rest of his life. She was vindictive enough to not feel sorry. Apparently one of the guys noticed the bloody tracks and saw her washing one of her uniforms in a stream, and reported it. He also noticed the man pulling her aside. His name was Rick and they were friends and partners until he tried to get her killed and tried to kill a dictator under her protection after she got out of the SEALS, and into five oh). She graduated basic third, under two men who were later kicked out for using steroids.  
After basic Stephanie went to college, got her degree somehow, even though she doesn’t remember most of it, and went on a lot of missions to places she learned to never recognize that she still can’t talk about. And then they’re on a mission taking in a gun runner, when she gets a call from her dad and it’s Victor Hesse, and her dad is being tortured, and even though she’s only talked to him once since basic he’s still her father, then he calls her champ, he never calls her that (he said he would never call her that, that that was only for a son that that doesn’t exist, will never exist,) and she’s so confused, then she hears a shot, and suddenly she’s a orphan, in a truck that explodes around her, the Hesse she has is dead, and she wants to scream but can’t, not yet, not until she’s alone and no one is there to watch her fall apart, because she knows if she falls apart now it won’t be a moment of weakness, it’ll be she was to weak to do her job. So she does her job, then she’s getting out into the reserves in order to plan her father’s funeral, suddenly it’s been three weeks and she hasn’t been alone long enough to cry, let alone break, she‘s in Hawaii, she’s in her fathers house, and there’s a box with the word champ on it, she’s beginning to open it when there someone shouting at her, its another woman, supposedly a cop, but she doesn’t believe and they’re both pulling out badges and she’s proven wrong, the cop is yelling, she’s yelling, and Stephanie’s taking control of a task force made by the governor, and she’s taking control of the scene as well, then she’s outside (how did she get outside?), the women is pushing her and she’s putting the cop (Daniela Williams) into a wrist lock, she lets go, then she’s getting punched, and _god she doesn’t know what’s going on, someone help please she just wants to sit down and cry, scream out her rage and her grief, and she’s drowning, help please_ , she’s getting into Williams car, a nice mustang she quite likes (but she doesn’t have the mind frame to notice, not yet, but later she will, and she will praise it as best she can with stunted words that show that she never really learned to talk to anyone, but she gives it her all to learning to talk to this women who had the balls to punch a navy SEAL. It’s easier than she thought it would be). They get to where Chin is, and talk him into the task force. They find Hesse, she doesn’t remember how, she just remembers dangling a 260 pound guy off of a roof, there’s yelling and he tells them something, she doesn’t remember what, but they find him, she’s driving a cop car onto a boat, and she sees Hesse, she’s chasing, she’s fighting for her life, for her fathers life, and she’s kicked off the container she’s on. She finds her gun she lost sometime during the fight, says a one liner she doesn’t remember, and she’s shooting Hesse in the chest twice. He falls off the boat, and suddenly she’s able to breathe. The case is closed and she gets the house and cleans it up. She collapses in the shower the first day she’s home (and it’s been so long since she’s been home) slides down the wall until she’s on the floor, and cries, she bawls, she breaks, alone for the first time in the weeks since her father died while on the phone with her, she breaks down to the grief and the rage, and breaks in the safety of a home that is hers alone, where she doesn’t have to worry about the eyes that are always watching, always judging the female SEAL, she can’t break in front of anyone if she wants to be able to do her job. She has no one to turn to. She hasn’t talked to her sister in years, her uncle told her that if she walked out that door to never return, and she’s so tired of the constant fight. She just wants to rest for a little bit, just not have to fight for her place in the world for a brief moment, be able to let down her shields for five minutes, and not have to worry about the fallout. But she can’t, wont, she has no one to trust with herself that way, so she does it here, on her own, wishing for someone to tell her it will be alright, to sit and grieve with her, but there’s no one so she pushes on. And that’s, not enough, but something at least.  
It’s years later when she realizes that she can trust Danni, with that part of herself, and has multiple times. After that she asked Danni out on a date, and it goes well. It goes very well, and so they keep doing it, until Danni says she want to open a restaurant, and have something planned for when they eventually retire, and she chokes up, unable to say anything at all to that. At that moment she knows she wants to marry this woman, who is so so bright, to bright for her damaged soul but loves her anyway, who say I love you in the same breathe she was just using to curse out her idiotic ideas and plans. Who worries about her and is her emergency contact. Who gave her a part of her liver, for no other reason than she doesn’t want Stephanie to die. So she goes out and buys a ring, proposes under the Hawaiian heat in a restaurant they built with their own two hands, with the permission of Danni’s daughter, who just says what took you so long, who has some how become the daughter she never had, and Danni says Yes, and the love of her life says yes, after having been burned from marriage by a man who she still has to fight to even see her daughter, the same daughter she gave birth to. The wedding is four months later and she gets to walk down the aisle, looking directly at Danni, who’s dressed in a white dress that looks resplendent on her, and tears are in her eyes, and she doesn’t remember what her vows said, she just remembers Danni with tears in her eyes, and saying I do, and kissing her, and she’s married to the most beautiful woman on the island, in the world, and she’s so happy she’s crying tears of joy. The reception is beautiful. The dance she has with Danni was amazing, and Chin and Kono and the other’s are all there and congratulating them. And the honeymoon was so much fun. They bicker like an old married couple that they aren’t, and smile at each other like the newly weds they are. New York was fun, but Washington, Oregon, the entirety of the west coast was so utterly glorious, Danni was so beautiful, and she’s so happy, she cant seem to stop smiling. She’s so in love with the woman beside her that she cant stop smiling, even while they’re bickering like they always do.  
A month later they’re back on the island, partners working cases like they always have. It’s nice. She loves every second of it. She has someone she knows she can always turn to and, as Danni says, her Idiotic plans taper off, because she has something to lose now, family that she loves with all her heart. Life is good, life is so so good.  
After she reaches fifty, and Danni is fifty-five, they both retire, letting the kids take over the 5-0, and just work the restaurant. Gracie, who has graduated college at that point and is working as a psychologist for the 5-0, is doing such good work. Grace marries a man named Chris Jackson (in another universe she marries a man named William, the same William that in this universe she is best friends with, but nothing more. However in that Universe she is a he, and that seems to have changed everything and yet nothing at the same time), and Danni and Stephanie are in their sixties, old but not grey yet, although they are getting there. Danni walks their daughter down the aisle, and Randall is not there, to busy making a deal in Oahu to come. They both cry when the vows are said, and Steph somehow gets to do the Father Daughter Dance with Grace, and they are both crying the entire time. Grace looks beautiful, and Chris has made their little girl so happy. That night under the Stars and the Hawaiian heat, they dance like the old married couple they are. They celebrate the marriage of their daughter like they are young again, and when the morning comes rehash the same argument over whether coffee or tea is better in the morning, bickering like the old married couple they were at heart long before they were even a couple. She looks up at her wife and realizes that they have been happily married for twenty-five years at this point, that somehow they got here, eating breakfast at the Royal Hawaiian Resort because neither of them wanted to drive home last night. She remembers being eighteen, twenty-seven, hell even thirty one and being so jaded, thinking that she would never have this, not having the strength to hope for a future, fighting on her own against a world that didn’t care. Now she’s here, owning a restaurant, running it with her wife by her side. She’s looking forward to the future. Even though she turning grey, and her wife complains about her knees and back, and her body aches from injuries that never healed properly. But she’s happy, and she has a family that’s happy. Her sister is married with three kids. Kono is just as reckless as she was when Stephanie was her age. She’s settled down, and is content with her life.  
Stephanie dies at the age of eighty-five, with white hair and creaky joints, right next to her wife, who dies two hours after her, in their sleep. Her and Danni’s ashes are mixed together and given a Hawaiian burial. Both sides of the Family show up, and Randall is even there, having retired the year before. The entire island mourns the loss of the couple, who had become something of the island’s grandma’s, always willing to lend a hand, and always knowing how to help. The loss is felt keenly, and the House they lived in together for forty-six years becomes a monument to the 5-0 team, and is never sold, or lived in by another person. Grace Jackson nee-Williams gives tours when she retires from the team, always telling little personal stories about living in the house for those that come and pay for the tour. Locals go there more then Tourists, to remember the women who fought to keep the island safe, who gave so much of themselves to making sure the way of life was preserved. The couple is famous enough that a statue is erected in their honor. It is the two of them, young and leading the team, Danni poking her finger in Stephanie’s chest, a smile on both of their faces. Their clearly bickering, and you can see on both of their left hands the marriage bands that are on their fingers. Stephanie’s arms are crossed, and the look on her face is mischievous. It’s a replication of a photograph that still sits in a place of honor in the Museum, and the statue sits in front of the five oh station, a reminder of where the task force comes from, and the women who lead it first.


End file.
